It sounds as if a switch was replaced so network connectivity was lost for 40 seconds (a partition if you will). The network recovered but during the 40 seconds a lot of "things" had to queued and processed and things cascaded out of control. Whenever people talk about CAP they seem to spend time thinking about behavior when there is a partition, and that's neat an all, but the real challenging parts come when the partition is healed, and people don't seem to spend enough time thinking about that mode of execution.